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Jonathan Swift - The Dean’s AnswerJonathan Swift - The Dean’s Answer
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The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit, I cannot but envy the pride of her wit, Which thus she will venture profusely to throw On so mean a design, and a subject so low. For mean`s her design, and her subject as mean, The first but a rebus, the last but a dean. A dean`s but a parson: and what is a rebus? A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus. The corruption of verse; for, when all is done, It is but a paraphrase made on a pun. But a genius like hers no subject can stifle, It shows and discovers itself through a trifle. By reading this trifle, I quickly began To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man. Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff, Which others for mantuas would think fine enough: So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here, Might furnish a second-rate poet a year. Thus much for the verse, we proceed to the next, Where the nymph has entirely forsaken her text: Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season: And what she describes to be merit, is treason: The changes which faction has made in the state, Have put the dean`s politics quite out of date: Now no one regards what he utters with freedom, And, should he write pamphlets, no great man would read `em; And, should want or desert stand in need of his aid, This racer would prove but a dull founder`d jade.
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